What Is the Going Rate for Transcription Services?

What do professional transcriptionists charge for their services?

Standard rates for a professional North American transcriptionist range from $1.50-3 USD per audio minute ($90-180 per audio hour) depending on audio quality and number of speakers. For projects with extra requirements or highly challenging audio, these rates can increase.

Rates of $0.70-1 per audio minute strongly suggest a company is using a largely non-native-English-speaking workforce or speech recognition software, both of which result in poor-quality transcripts.

In today’s post, I’ll cover:

• Common pricing structures for transcription
• Factors that affect transcription costs
• Reasons to use a North American service instead of outsourcing overseas
• Tips for reducing your transcription costs

This post may contain affiliate links. See my disclosure for more info.

Common pricing structures for transcription services

Audio transcription is usually billed in one of the following ways:

• Per audio minute or audio hour. This fixed-price structure is the industry standard for general transcription. As noted above, professional rates run between $1.50 and $3 USD per audio minute.
• Per line. This pricing structure is most common in the medical transcription industry, where a line is usually defined as 65 characters including spaces. Standard rates for medical transcription are 7-14 cents per line.
• Per typed page. Per-page pricing is most common with document typing projects (see below).
• Per hour of the transcriptionist’s time. Hourly-rate pricing benefits typists by guaranteeing a minimum rate regardless of audio quality. The average hourly rate for transcribing interviews is $50 USD according to Writer’s Market. Based on my own research, hourly rates from $25-40 are most typical.

Document typing (transcribing from another text document rather than an audio file – also known as copy typing) is typically billed per typed page. However, it can also be billed per word or per hour.

Typical costs for copy typing range from $4-15 USD per typed page, where 350 words is a standard page length.

Factors that affect transcription costs

Not all audio is created equal: Some audio takes many times longer to transcribe.

Therefore, transcription companies usually charge a higher rate for the following:

• Problematic audio (distorted, muffled, too quiet, heavy background noise)
• Audio with many speakers, fast speakers, or lots of crosstalk
• Extra requirements such as timestamps, true verbatim transcription, or special formatting
• Rush turnaround times of 24 hours or less

Specialized types of transcription – such as medical, legal, academic, technical, and financial – may cost more than so-called general transcription projects due to their specialized nature and the amount of research required.

Overseas vs. North America-based transcription services

I noted above that some transcription agencies advertise rates of as low as $0.70-1 per audio minute. These companies recruit overseas-based or inexperienced workers and compete on price alone. Staff wages are production based and often work out to $5 per hour or less. Because of this, workers feel pressured to cut corners on transcripts, and the qualified professionals quickly move on to positions where their time and skills are better valued.

Staff aren’t the only casualties of this arrangement: For the client, it results in poor-quality transcripts. At best, the completed transcripts may need substantial editing. At worst, they may be unusable and have to be redone.

All this wastes time and costs money.

By contrast, there are several advantages of partnering with a service that uses North American typists:

Accurate transcripts

North American transcriptionists are proficient in English-language mechanics such as spelling, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization. They understand English idioms and slang. They’re familiar with local and regional names, places, and current events.

Additionally, many North America-based transcription services follow an established style guide to ensure consistent formatting of transcripts. For example, we usually follow Associated Press style, which is the standard in American journalism.

Clear communication

Working with a North American transcription service removes language barriers so client inquiries can be handled in a clear and timely manner.

Enhanced security

Many transcription services use a workflow in which typists select audio files from a queue and preview the audio before accepting the job. Although this speeds up production, it also means that an audio file may be viewed by transcriptionists around the world before it’s accepted for transcription.

Small North American service providers have a security advantage here: Often, audio is manually assigned to transcriptionists. And in queue-based workflows, there are fewer transcriptionists to preview the audio at any given time.

It’s important to note that if a company advertises as North America based, it doesn’t necessarily mean they use only North American typists. When in doubt, check their careers page or ask.

How to lower your transcription fees

Many transcription companies charge a higher fee for difficult audio or audio with many speakers because these files take much longer to transcribe.

Follow these recording best practices to lower your transcription fees and improve the quality of your finished transcripts:

• Use proper recording equipment. Clients recommend using a digital handheld recorder like the Olympus WS-853 or the Sony UX560.
• Record sessions in person instead of over the phone. If this isn’t possible, you can still record decent-quality phone audio using your digital recorder and a telephone pickup mic like the Olympus TP-8 Telephone Pick-up Microphone.
• Avoid recording in settings with a lot of background noise. Do an initial test recording to check that every speaker can be clearly heard.
• If you’re recording a meeting or focus group, appoint someone to ensure that participants take turns and don’t talk over each other.